Thailand’s favourite floating market

Floating markets offer visitors to Asia a fascinating and unique experience. The market activity is colourful and friendly and offers many unusual sights. Who knows you might even end up cuddling a snake? Damnoen Saduak is the most popular floating market in Thailand. It is an hour’s drive from Bangkok and it is worth going early in the morning to catch the best of the market, which is open daily until noon, and avoid the worst of the heat. It is possible to walk along the banks of the river and witness all the action from dry land, but some of the sellers, and their produce, will be out of reach as many stalls face the water.

Boarding a boat takes you right into the centre of the action and if it is busy and you sit near the front you will have to get used to the mass of boats constantly coming at you. There are so many sometimes that it looks like there will only be collisions yet somehow, with a few nudges, everyone manages to move along.

It is definitely worth getting one of the boats as there are several canals that weave between all the stalls and also around the river, offering the inquisitive eye a glimpse of local village life.

Damnoen Saduak attracts many fruit sellers and food vendors selling noodles from the banks of the river and banana fritters from loosely moored boats. Some amazing smells waft around the market. Nothing is expensive making it a wonderful place to try new things.

Great photos can be taken at every turn. The fruit sellers provide huge flashes of colour, there is a man who waves a large snake at tourists and the floating market trading is somehow just picturesque. Combine all this activity with the movement on the water and the human interaction and you can’t help but be bewitched by the market.

Have you been to Damoen Saduak? What was your favourite part? Mine was the fresh banana fritters – yum!